I passed my driving test in 2006 less than a year after I started my lessons, while I was 17 and still in high school. Needless to say I was pretty happy with myself but I didn’t tell anyone. I’m not sure why to be honest but I kind of liked keeping that little secret to myself. and it wasn’t until after I left school I started letting people in on it.
Driving was, and probably still is, the most natural thing in the world to me. I’ve always found it quite an easy thing to do – the hardest part was eliminating the habits that would cause me to fail a driving test.
Waiting for my test was maybe one of the most infuriating experiences of my life as due to the wait times back then I had booked it something like two months in advance. Not only was I ready at the time, I was 17 and really impatient but I was also paying £18 a lesson for an additional two months leading up to my test date to keep me fresh and that was a lot of money for me back then.
The night before my test I went out and sat in the car in driveway and tried to visualise the freedom that such a basic piece of machinery could give me at 17 years old. I’m not into this whole manifesting your destiny stuff, but I really do think that little extra push the night before helped me get in the right mind for sitting the test day.
My first car was a purple 1995 Vauxhall Astra. It was the best first car a boy could ever want although, I’ll admit it wasn’t the coolest – especially once I was done with it. You have to remember I was part of the generation who grew up with those early Fast and Furious films and Max Power magazine. But, since I was 17, modification options were somewhat limited since I didn’t want my insurance to skyrocket so, visual and aesthetic upgrades were the order of the day.
So, being 17 and dumb what did I do? Well, nothing good. Now remember the car was purple… putting a bright red stripe up each side seems like a logical thing to do, right? I didn’t stop there either. I also painted black plastic door handles red as well as the Vauxhall Griffin in the middle of each of the alloys red. Next, I put bright red seat covers into the car, red metallic car mats which were horrible in the rain and of course, being 2006, no car was complete without a banging JVC CD player and some fuzzy dice.
Yeah, I was a twat.
Things didn’t stop there though, things arguably got worse when I got my second car and had more money to do dumb things to it as by then I was working and going to college and for some reasons my parents never let me know just how stupid some of my ideas actually were.
At age 19, I got my second car. It was a dark red 1999 Peugeot 206 and it was terrible. It is easily the worst car I’ve ever owned but, at the time I loved it despite it’s lack of power when it encountered a hill. The 206 marks my last attempts and trying to make my car look cooler than it actually is… for now at least. There’s a midlife crisis approaching don’t forget.
I littered the thing in white graphics. I put white electrical tape over the black plastic on the roof. I put a white stripe down the side with some tribal designs on the back quarter panels. I stuck on a lovely set of 19″ alloy wheels, bought and fitted a spoiler and bought a custom parcel shelf from my brother’s mate which came with a couple of speakers build into it. I even got a little blue LED light that I glued around the dashboard to give it that final touch…
Well, it was the final touch until I slapped an Autobot sticker over the petrol cap and legitimately convinced my nephew it was a Transformer.
One of the biggest issues I had with the car was that during the winter it tended to get very iced up… on the inside. I wasn’t a fan of that. It drove like shit in the snow because it weighed next to nothing and it eventually developed some lovely faults that meant it wasn’t exactly safe to drive anymore. First, the clutch went on the day of the Royal Wedding in 2011 and by the time I got it back the speedo didn’t work and the brake lights were stuck on at all times.
Needless to say the guy who done it was more than a little shit at his job and took zero responsibility for any of it so I ended up trading in my little French friend for a 2004 VW Golf which I ended up keeping for 9 years, essentially until it fell apart on me.
But, before we get to that, there was a time in-between buying the 206 and selling the 206 when my Dad took it to drive and and forth to work and I got myself another Vauxhall Astra, this time a 2001 model. I didn’t do any modifications to this one. I basically only used it to drive back and forth from college and work and at the time I was mainly working the doors in dodgy parts of Glasgow and beyond so having an easily identifiable car probably wasn’t the best idea anyway.
I blew the engine up on that Astra. Driving down the motorway one night from a friend’s house, I get the little warning light that said I needed some oil. OK, no worries. I’m 30secs away from being able to pull in and stop… Only issue is I didn’t get 30seconds, I maybe got about 7secs before the whole thing exploded on me and I just about shit myself.
So one new engine later, I end up getting the thing back on the road and keep it throughout my relationship with Ann (more on her later) as it worked as an ideal little family car to shuttle her and her kids around. However, when we split up I got my 206 back off my Dad and gave him the Astra in some dumb attempt at reliving my youth….
Keep in mind I was still only 23 at the time. I wasn’t exactly old.